Political Activism

Today Senator Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said that senators are excluding a provision on end-of-life care from the House bill. This is a major victory for ordinary Americans.

As senior citizens voice their displeasure with “death-panels” and other provisions in the House bill, the Democrat leaders are grudgingly realizing that maybe, just maybe, some provisions in their House bill will not pass with the American public.

The most recent polls show that the demonizing tactics of President Obama and Speaker Pelosi have failed to cover the growing grassroots activism that is rising among ordinary Americans.

There are two observations I have noticed during this health care debate that President Obama and Congressional Democrats have been pushing.

One, there is anger from the American people concerning the direction and the destination of health care ‘reform’. Genuine anger. The unfortunate problem is that a small minority have chosen to shout down congressional leaders in Town Hall meetings that have proven to be a distraction at best and a public relations disaster at worst. Those that oppose any health care ‘reform’, especially the socialist laden package that is currently being drafted, should respect the opposition and engage in constructive dialogue. Showing anger and disrespect to your elected officials is simply wrong and uncalled for and should be stopped now.

Which leads to my second observation and the accusations that this grass roots opposition to health care ‘reform’ is being labeled as astroturf. Due to the cooperation of the mainstream media in failing to provide unbiased programming of the health care debate in addition to leading Democrats from President Obama to House Speak Nancy Pelosi having mislabeled genuine American concern of government intrusion via health care ‘reform’ as artificial. If leading Democrats continue to mischaracterize the opposition as such, they will do this to their own detriment. Meaning a possible loss of one or both chambers of congress in the 2010 Congressional Elections and possibly the executive branch in 2012. They need to take the American people seriously, not ignore the problem.

[Updates at the bottom of this posting. Most recent update at 6:54 pm CST 8-10-09]

Nancy Pelosi, the liberal Democratic Representative from San Francisco, wrote early this morning in a special USA Today editorial that those protesting against government run health care are “un-American“.

It is clear to Representative Pelosi and her cohorts that the majority of Americans do not want further government intrusion into their lives, hence Mrs. Pelosi’s attempts at demonizing ordinary Americans.

Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American.

She is referring to the many town hall meetings where Americans were voicing their displeasure to government run health care. Deliberately smearing Americans for voicing their opinions.

Sadly, the mainstream media is doing their part in painting these town halls as darkly as possible, regardless of the evidence that SEIU goons, Blueshirts, have already attacked health care protesters.

Let’s wait until the 2010 congressional elections and see their opinions voiced in turning back European style socialism by voting these malefactors out of office.

Update I: House GOP Leader John Boehner (Ohio) ripped his Democratic counterparts Monday for labeling those disrupting lawmaker town halls as “un-American.” Read the rest of this here.

Update II: The guy that beat up Mr. Gladney:

Elston K. McCowan is a former organizer – now the Public Service Director of SEIU Local 2000 – and board member of the Walbridge Community Education Center, and is a Baptist minister, has been a community organizer for more than 23 years, and now, he is running for Mayor of the City of St. Louis under the Green Party.

McCowan accused the Mayor of setting fire to his van . . . because that’s what big city mayors do in their spare time, I guess. He also called [St Louis Mayor Francis] Slay a racist. And, on election night, McCowan thanked the family who voted for him. It was quite touching, actually.

McCowan is not a rank-and-file, card-carrying union guy. He is a director with SEIU. He IS the union. He ISSUES the cards. Andy Stern himself might as well have kicked Gladney.

It’s been an interesting week in the world of American politics. With the arrogance of congressional Democrats and the White House attempts at discrediting a grassroots movement, the passions will certainly continue to climb after the weekend is over.

Here are some highlights from these past few days:

1. At a town hall last week in Dallas, an elderly “mob” with “manufactured” outrage questioned AARP’s support for nationalized health care, asking: “Do you work for us or do we work for you?”

There were no swastika-wearing grannies at Tuesday’s meeting, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might claim. Nor were they “taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongers . . . and insurance rackets,” as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said.

But they were mad as hell at the perception that AARP was selling them out in the name of government-run medical insurance. That perception was not helped when the AARP town hall on the subject was shut down by the seniors outfit once the members dared to ask questions. The AARP representatives did not want to hear from the members at all. Just send in your dues, granny, and be quiet.

Ah, it does my heart good to see Senator Arlen Specter (D.Pa) and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services exposed to the verbal anger of the public! Now why is that?

Well as to Snarlin’ Arlen, he was for decades a pro-abort Republican and now is a pro-abort Democrat. My reaction when he jumped parties earlier this year was good riddance. He jumped parties of course because he was an almost certain loser to pro-life Pat Toomey in the Republican primary. The hilarious thing is that Specter will face a Democrat primary challenge from Congressman Joe Sestak who announced his candidacy yesterday. If he survives the primary challenge he faces an up-hill fight against Toomey. In a Quinnipiac poll on July 22, Specter leads Toomey by a single percentage point 45%-44%. This is a devastating poll for an incumbent facing a well-known challenger.

As for Sebelius, she is a fanatic pro-abort, as I detailed here, and a close political ally of the late Tiller the Killer. Just before her confirmation it came out that she had received three times the donations from Tiller than she had claimed. Of course this is only the tip of a large ice berg of campaign funds that Tiller used to aid Sebelius as this letter here from Tiller indicates. Her ties to Tiller were outlined by Bob Novak last year here. When confronted about Tiller she was always in full ” Tiller?” mode:

Yep, I can watch these two being booed with a fine enjoyment! Schadenfreude? Indeed!

I’m a big fan of the personal finance speaker & author Dave Ramsey… when our oldest was born nearly five years ago and my wife prepared to stay home to take care of her and her siblings-to-come, I didn’t know how we were going to manage on my income alone; Ramsey’s book and radio show provided us with a straightforward, systematic approach to managing our finances, and for that, I am grateful… his is the talk radio show that I still listen to most.

But when it comes to politics, Dave is far too typical of many mainstream conservatives: he confuses principles for their application, just like Limbaugh, Hannity, et al.

Well what do you know? Now that the election is over with unrepentant terrorist William Ayers admits to the New Yorker that his contacts with the “Obama circle”, his words, continued until, once again his words, his name became part of the “campaign maelstrom”. In a reissue this month of his memoirs Fugitive Days Ayers refers to Obama as a “family friend”. Too bad America in the last election had a media that seemed largely unable to do anything other than recycle Obama campaign releases. It will be very interesting to see the role that unrepentant terrorist Ayers plays behind the scenes in an Obama administration.